The Only Difference Between YouTube and Writing is The Content

If you’re not aware, I’m currently balancing two creative hobbies: YouTube and novel-writing. There’s also some amateur graphic designing going on sometimes, but my focus is mostly on YouTube or my novel.

I’m a graphic design god.

I love both of them equally and I would love if I could make one or both of them into a career someday, but for now I’m content with working on them in my free time. However, my free time is limited so the time I spend on each hobby is a delicate process.

You see, I’ve committed myself to posting a new video every single Monday. In my two years on YouTube, I’ve only missed two Mondays and both of those times were for technical reasons out of my control so I’m very dedicated to my commitment. To avoid missing a Monday, I’ll make multiple videos ahead of time so I can post them at leisure. On a particularly slow week, I filmed ten videos within four days.

Now I’m not saying all of those videos were top quality, but it was definitely a feat I could only accomplish if I was in a writer’s block for my novel which happened to be the case. I tend to enter a video-making phase right in the middle of a writer’s block. It’s important that I emphasize “middle” because I once entered a video-making phase at a start of a writer’s block and I had to rewrite two chapters to fix it. In the middle of a writer’s block, I make just enough traction to continue once my video-making phase is done but I also give myself enough space so I can focus on my videos.

YouTube has become my creative escape from my novel. I can still make videos when I’m not in a writer’s block, but I don’t make them with the same focus I have when I don’t have to focus on my novel.

Alternatively, I’ll reach a point where I’ll make too many videos and run out of ideas for new ones. That’s usually when the creative energy for my novel has returned and I can trudge through my writer’s block with ease. It’s a lovely cycle. Neither can survive without the other. I can’t make YouTube videos unless I’m in a writer’s block and I can’t write unless I’m comfortable with my number of videos.

Essentially, I can’t compare my two hobbies. They balance each other out and I focus my creative energy into both of them equally. Graphic design, on the other hand, might need a little work.